Lift Up Your Hearts!

This started as a comment to the Sockdolager post on Daley Ponderings, but it turned out to be long and off-topic, so I migrated it here. The article in question is a thought-provoking one, but it had one unintended consequence.

I've been having an ongoing conversation with our rector, who insists on frequent use of simple "praise choruses" at all our services, even the most traditional, so that they will stick in our heads and we'll have them handy in times of need.  I understand the motivation:  this is why I memorize Scripture, hymns, liturgy, poetry, anthems, and other useful and helpful works.

But because I know he does not set out to torture his congregation, I know his brain processes music in a different way from mine.  By this I don't mean that he likes different music from me, although that is certainly true.  The issue is not a matter of style or taste, but of processing.

Music sticks in my brain.  I wish it were only the best music that sticks in my brain, but it's not.  The simpler and more banal it is, the more it sticks.  And it won't go away.  Round and round and round it plays like a track on eternal "repeat," until I manage to kick it out—often by substituting something else—or go crazy.  So far I've managed not to reach the latter point...quite.

This can be a useful affliction, as it does help with learning choir pieces.  But it doesn't stop after we're done with the anthem.  A little of that can be enjoyable, but even my favorite anthems can get stuck, and I have to work actively to stop the process so I don't end up loathing them.  And if I don't like a song from the beginning, you can imagine what I think of it by the 455th repetition.

The more complicated the work, the less likely it is to annoy me, which is why the simple praise choruses are more than usually troublesome.  But complex music is not exempt:  the other day I had part of Mozart's g minor symphony stuck on "repeat" and it was driving me nuts, even though I really like the piece. Fortunately, I know enough of that one that I was able, by effort of will, to kick it over into the next section.

It's not only music that does this to me, but words—though usually only if I'm writing them.  I tend to compose paragraphs while walking—often they later become letters or blog posts.  That can be an efficient way to think, but sometimes I'll get stuck going round and round with the same phrases and thoughts, and that's when I know it's time to pull out the mp3 player and let someone else's words into my brain.

Does anyone else share this blessing/affliction?

But the point of all this is what happened after I read the article, which is about Davy Crockett and the Constitution.  So far, writing this post has been the only thing able to stop my endless mental repetitions of The Ballad of Davy Crockett.  I never saw the movie, nor the television show, but as a child I had a record of Disney songs, of which that was one.  Despite 50 years or so having passed since I last heard that record, I could still sing it to you.

I won't, though.  You can watch this instead.

A friend of mine likes to clean out her files periodically, and when she does I know to expect an envelope in the mail.  She's very much into recycling.

Some of the articles she sends are from years back, so when there's one I'd like to share it's not always possible to locate it online.  Thanks to Google News archives, however, you too can read this Lori Borgman column from 2002. 

Maybe when all's said and done, the greatest perk of staying for the duration is knowing and being known.

Lori is both wise and funny, a healthy combination in any era.

Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan,  by Greg Mortenson (Viking Penguin, New York, 2009)

I knew before finishing Three Cups of Tea that I wanted to read the sequel.  Stones into Schools is even more wonderful.  For one thing, Mortenson has found better help with the writing, so the story is crafted in a riveting, compelling fashion.

Most of all, though, the story itself is riveting and compelling.  While autobiography was a necessary and interesting part of the first book, this one is more about the work of the Central Asia Institute than about Mortenson himself.  In an inversion of the usual approach taken in books about institutions, here the pyramid of emphasis gives the most prominence to the people at the bottom of the organizational structure.  Perhaps the greatest strength of the Central Asia Institute is the extent to which the principle of subsidiarity is honored:  the work is handled at the lowest competent level, which means most of it is in the hands of the Afghanis and Pakistanis themselves.  The Americans handle the overall organization and fundraising, at which it must be admitted we are much better than at dealing with the intricacies of getting things done in a culture that is completely foreign to us.

The Russian invasion of Afghanistan; the rise and fall and rise of the Taliban; the devastating earthquake in Kashmir; the tensions (and war) between India and Pakistan; the unselfish goodness and the tragic, pig-headed stupidity of American intervention—see these from the inside, and never look at a map of that part of the world in the same way again.  Learn what unbelievable sacrifices the "backwoods," tribal peoples will make to gain an education for their daughters, and how much they appreciate schooling for their sons that does not include militant, Taliban-backed, Saudi-funded, extremist indoctrination.

What pleases me most about Stones into Schools is the clear fairness of it all.  In the acknowledgments section, there are as many D's after the politicians names as there are R's.  Mortenson excoriates and praises American policy with an even hand, according to the results he sees.  And while he is careful never to take any funding from the U. S. government for fear of jeopardizing the credibility of his organization, he is happy to work with the military to promote peace and understanding.

Prior to those meetings [with military personal, from service academies to high-level officials], my judgment of the American military's conduct in Afghanistan was harsh and rather uncompromising—and even after these encounters, I still have my objections.  Between June and November 2006, for example, the U.S. Air Force ... dropped roughly 987 bombs on Afghanistan....  The resulting civilian casualties generated deep revulsion among the Afghan people.

Nevertheless, as I experienced the equivalent of sharing three cups of tea with the U.S. military, my perspective began to change.  In a way, each side had something to teach the other, and we both wound up emerging wiser and enriched by the encounter.  In the end, I also came away with the conclusion that the military is probably doing a better job than any other institution in the United States government—including the State Department, Congress, and the White House—of developing a meaningful understanding of the complex dynamics on the ground in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The progress that the military has made began under President Bush, and continues under President Obama.  The Central Asia Institute's supporters are as "red" as they are "blue."   They are school children collecting Pennies for Peace, and high-ranking military leaders.  Is there something here that can unite our sorely divided country?

I often recommend books, but I rarely say, "everyone should read this book."

Everyone should read this book.

Most of all, every American should read Stones into Schools.

There's nothing like establishing a pattern of making a new resolution on the 8^th of every month to make one aware of how quickly time passes, and how slowly progress is made.  Nonetheless, I press on with April.

One of the joys of this venture is the resolutions themselves.  For the most part they've been new and unexpected:  had I made a list of resolutions on January 1^st it would have been quite different.  Even when I'm thinking ahead to what next month's might be, by the time it comes to write it up, something new and different, but to my mind perfect, has appeared out of the blue to supplant it.

Like More Things was like that, a resolution that I don't believe had crossed my mind in over half a century.  After all, what we like and dislike is part of what defines us as individuals, and the ability to distinguish between good quality and bad marks us as mature, educated human beings.  So here is what I don't mean.

I don't mean giving up individual preferences like preferring broccoli to asparagus or Wagner to Mozart.

I don't mean pretending the ugly is beautiful, shoddy work is as good as high-quality craftsmanship, or that war is peace, slavery freedom, and ignorance strength.

Above all I don't mean accepting that all lifestyles, all philosophies, all behaviors, all theories, and all actions are equally valuable.

But not liking things is a great waste of energy, and an insult to God who gave them to us as good gifts.  If a thing isn't out-and-out sinful, why should I not enjoy it? Only if circumstances would make it wrong for me—a qualification covering everything from sex outside of lawful marriage to eating that chocolate-covered doughnut while having given up sweets for Lent.  The array of good things presented for us to enjoy vastly outnumbers the bad, yet we voluntarily close ourselves off from many of them.

If I don't like beets (they make me gag), not only am I not enjoying a good, healthy gift from God, but I'm putting myself in the position of worrying, when we eat at someone else's house, that the hostess will serve beets, and I will somehow have to choke them down with a smile.  And I'm depriving my husband, who loves beets, because I rarely think to serve them.

If I don't like contemporary church "praise songs" (most of them make me gag), I'm cutting myself off from a community experience with those who do, and hindering my ability to worship God in a "contemporary-style" service.

Those are two really tough ones for me, so I'm not starting there.  But I know that what we like and dislike is changeable, and to at least some extent subject to our wills.  Over the years my husband and I have each trained ourselves to relish foods we had previously rejected, or eaten only "because they're good for us," and have made some progress in at least tolerating music that is not to our taste.  Very small changes, I know, but recognizing the possibility of change is a good start.

I don't ever expect to prefer Christian (or any other variety) rock music to Bach-harmonized hymns, and that's not my goal.  But I can take actions to help reduce negative reactions, such as using earplugs (such music is almost always presented at a painful volume), and concentrating on what good I can find, be it a particular line of text or the skill of the guitarist.

When something is not wrong, why torture ourselves by not liking it?

"[I]f a body was never to do anything but what he knew to be good, he would have to live half his time doing nothing."

"There you are much mistaken. ... How little you must have thought! Why, you don't seem even to know the good of the things you are constantly doing. Now don't mistake me. I don't mean you are good for doing them. It is a good thing to eat your breakfast, but you don't fancy it's very good of you to do it. The thing is good, not you. ... There are a great many more good things than bad things to do."

(George MacDonald, The Princess and Curdie)

 

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Progress report:

#1  Read More Books  Nine more books in March, including one audiobook.  Making progress on The History of the Ancient World mentioned in my last update, but interspersing it with shorter books.

#2  Rediscover Feasting  Some progress; not a lot, but steady.  Having wonderful dinner guests a couple of times made for some great feasts by my standards.  Fasting one day each week during Lent turned out to be much more fun than I had thought; maybe I'll keep it up.  It's really nice to have a whole day with no time spent preparing and eating meals.  I've also been learning from British chef and gadfly Jamie Oliver as well as Michael Pollan; their celebration of good food is contagious.

#3  Learn to Relax  Alas, almost no progress here, and with travel on the horizon I don't anticipate much this month, either.  I enjoy vacations and travel, but for an introvert like me, even the best come with elevated stress levels.  Come to think of it, maybe that will provide an excellent opportunity to practice relaxing under stress!

Our greatest involvement in our children's public schools came during the heyday of the self-esteem movement, and I recall the frustrations of being a lone voice crying out that easy success is as much an inhibitor of learning as repeated failure.  Those who sail through their early educational encounters with too much ease are often surpassed by their supposedly less able compatriots later in life, because they've missed the important lessons taught by failure.

With a hat top to Free-Range Kids, here's a Wall Street Journal article on why that college rejection letter, that teacher's put-down, and even our own weaknesses can be agents that propel us to success.

Warren Buffett was devastated when Harvard Business School rejected his application.  Buoyed by his father's "unconditional love...an unconditional belief in me," he looked for Plan B, squeaked in under Columbia University's application deadline, and was accepted, later donating some twelve million dollars to the institution whose investment in Buffett turned out to be as savvy as Buffett himself.

"The truth is, everything that has happened in my life...that I thought was a crushing event at the time, has turned out for the better," Mr. Buffett says.

Columbia's current president, Lee Bollinger, grew up in a small town with limited educational opportunities.  He, too, was rejected by Harvard, and the shock taught him to take responsibility for his own education, to realize that "it was up to him alone to define his talents and potential."

His advice: Don't let rejections control your life. To "allow other people's assessment of you to determine your own self-assessment is a very big mistake," says Mr. Bollinger, a First Amendment author and scholar. "The question really is, who at the end of the day is going to make the determination about what your talents are, and what your interests are? That has to be you."

Success has many lessons to teach, too, and frankly I prefer that classroom.  But for grit, determination, perseverance, responsibility, and hard work, failure may be the better teacher.

Christ is risen!
He is risen, indeed!  Alleluia!

We do know the proper first words of Easter morning.  They are not,

"What the heck was that?!?" 
"Mmmm, a very large branch that fell but didn't hit the roof?"

But sometimes, when awakened unexpectedly from a deep sleep, proper words are not what first comes to mind.  We don't yet know what it was, as it's dark out and will still be so when we leave for church in a few minutes.  But when we return after two services of singing and rejoicing, a little investigation will be in order.

Happy Easter, All!

Is there anything worse than excruciating physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual torture and death?

It takes nothing from the sufferings of Christ commemorated this Holy Week to pause and consider a couple of other important persons in the drama.

I find the following hymn to be one of the most powerful and moving of the season.  For obvious reasons, it is usually sung on Palm Sunday, but the verses reach all the way through to Easter.

Ride on! ride on in majesty!
Hark! all the tribes hosanna cry;
Thy humble beast pursues his road
with palms and scattered garments strowed.

Ride on! ride on in majesty!
In lowly pomp ride on to die;
O Christ, thy triumphs now begin
o'er captive death and conquered sin.

Ride on! ride on in majesty!
The angel armies of the sky
look down with sad and wond'ring eyes
to see the approaching sacrifice.

Ride on! ride on in majesty!
Thy last and fiercest strife is nigh;
the Father on his sapphire throne
expects his own anointed Son.

Ride on! ride on in majesty!
In lowly pomp ride on to die;
bow thy meek head to mortal pain,
then take, O God, thy power, and reign.

"The Father on his sapphire throne expects his own anointed Son."  For millennia, good fathers have encouraged, led, or forced their children into suffering, from primitive coming-of-age rites to chemotherapy.  Even when they know it is for the best, and that all will be well in the end, the terrible suffering of the fathers is imaginable only by someone who has been in that position himself.

And mothers?

The Protestant Church doesn't talk much about Mary.  The ostensible reason is to avoid what they see as the idolatry of the Catholic Church, though given the adoration heaped upon male saints and church notables by many Protestants, I'm inclined to suspect a little sexism, too.  In any case, Mary is generally ignored, except for a little bit around Christmas, where she is unavoidable. 

On Wednesday I attended, for the second time in my life, a Stations of the Cross service.  Besides being a very moving service as a whole, it brought my attention to the agony of Mary.  Did she recall then the prophetic word of Simeon, "a sword shall pierce through your own soul also"?  Did she find the image of being impaled by a sword far too mild to do justice to the searing, tearing torture of watching her firstborn son wrongly convicted, whipped, beaten, mocked, crucified, in an agony of pain and thirst, and finally abandoned to death?  Did she find a tiny bit of comfort in the thought that death had at least ended the ordeal?  Did she cling to the hope of what she knew in her heart about her most unusual son, that even then the story was not over?  Whatever she may have believed, she could not have had the Father's knowledge, and even if she had, would that have penetrated the blinding agony of the moment?

In my head I know that the sufferings of Christ, in taking on the sins of the world, were unimaginably greater than the physical pain of injustice and crucifixion, which, awful as they are, were shared by many others in those days.  But in my heart, it's the sufferings of God his Father and Mary his mother that hit home most strongly this Holy Week.

The Gobblestone School: A Tale Inspired by the German Criminalization of Homeschooling, by Jacob Schriftman (aka Jokim Schnoebbe) (Moonrise/CreateSpace, Scotts Valley, California, 2009)

I wanted to like this book.

First, I wanted to read it, and for that I had to buy it, as it was not available in the library.  It languished in my Amazon "save for later" cart for a while, but I recently decided to indulge myself.  I'm glad I read it, but as indulgence goes, I'd rather have dark chocolate.

I don't remember where I first heard of The Gobblestone School; it was probably because of my deep concern (and daily prayers) for Germany, where homeschooling is sufficient grounds for forcibly removing children from their homes and placing them in governmental care.  Many homeschoolers have left their homes and jobs, families and friends to be able to give their children the education they believe is best, and the author of The Gobblestone School (now living in Ireland) is one of them.  So I really wanted to like his book.

But even extreme sympathy, identification, and concern won't make me say I like a book if I don't.

The Gobblestone School has three problems, as far as I am concerned.  First, it's aimed at modern adolescents, and I like very little that is focused on this narrow demographic.  I do give the author kudos for not filling his book with profanities and sexual themes, as many of that genre do.  It's also about school and magic, and let's be honest:  when it comes to modern adolescents, school, and magic, J. K. Rowling has set the bar rather high.

Second, I don't have to be able to write a better story to be qualified to say this one is not well written.  I can stand a poorly-written book if the story captivates me sufficiently, and I can stand a less interesting story if the craft is superlative.  But two strikes and I'm not happy.

Finally, I had hoped that the book would be a good introduction to the benefits of homeschooling and to the particular problems in Germany, an easily-read explanation I could lend to others. It turns out to be a book that the homeschooling cognoscenti and children who are miserable in school might appreciate, but I doubt it would contribute anything to a reasoned dialogue.  Even though the heavy-handed stereotyping is admittedly important to the plot, and the unhappy German school experience has clearly autobiographical elements (and therefore can't be entirely dismissed as false), the extreme negativity about school (and German school authorities) disqualifies the book from the outreach role I had hoped for it.  Not that the author doesn't have reason enough to feel strong negative emotions about the German school system!

My own hopes for it aside, The Gobblestone School was actually a fun, quick, and easy read, much better than most in its genre, though that's not exactly high praise.

"Cash for Clunkers," Appliance Edition.  I've been looking forward to Florida's appliance rebate program ever since I first heard rumor of it.  Our refrigerator was old when we bought it used in 2001, and I'm sure it uses up much more energy than a refrigerator should.  Plus, who knows how long it will last?

Actually, that question is spurious.  Our neighbors bought a new, high-end appliance a few years ago and it has required multiple repairs—even while still under warranty—whereas our old clunker is still going strong, albeit with strange nocturnal (and diurnal) noises.  Still, you never know.

However, this is no "shop carefully, get the best deal, purchase your appliance, and apply for the rebate" program.

A website, the address of which hasn't yet been released, will be launched Thursday to give consumers step-by-step instructions and also be used to take the reservations beginning April 16. ... [C]ustomers will be expected to register online for a reservation after making their purchase and before applying for the rebate. After reserving a spot, customers must then fill out a rebate application form, available online or at some retailers. The application, with original receipts, must be submitted no later than May 10.  Demand for the rebates is expected to be high, and Florida has just $17.6 million for the program. Though it's scheduled to run for 10 days starting April 16, the program will end when the funds dry up.

In Iowa, high demand exhausted the $2.9 million budget for its rebate program less than eight hours after it began, not before causing both the Web site and the phone system for the program to crash. Ditto for Minnesota, where a $5 million budget was gone in a day.

[T]he Florida program will offer no guarantee of a rebate for customers who purchase an eligible appliance and go online to reserve a spot, only to find out that the rebate money is already gone.

Sounds more like a feeding frenzy to me.

No rainchecks.  Bait and switch.  Lure the customer in with the hope of a rebate, then "tough luck, Charlie" after the purchase has been made.  If a corporation tried this they'd be hauled into court.

One local appliance dealer said hopefully, "I still believe there are people out there with the funds available to buy, but they're not motivated," said Kimball. "I think this will motivate them."

Or not.  Perhaps the recession has alerted people that having funds available does not imply an obligation to spend them.

CNN Health reported a study in which rats, allowed unlimited access to bacon, sausage, cheesecake, frosting, and other high-calorie foods, developed brain changes similar to those in rats given free access to cocaine or heroin.  People are not rats, the scientists are quick to point out, but the findings are suggestive.  I'm not so happy that their goal seems to be developing a pharmaceutical approach to both drug addiction and obesity, but I found the following thought-provoking:

The fact that junk food could provoke this response isn't entirely surprising, says Dr.Gene-Jack Wang, M.D., the chair of the medical department at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, in Upton, New York.

"We make our food very similar to cocaine now," he says.

Coca leaves have been used since ancient times, he points out, but people learned to purify or alter cocaine to deliver it more efficiently to their brains (by injecting or smoking it, for instance). This made the drug more addictive.

According to Wang, food has evolved in a similar way. "We purify our food," he says. "Our ancestors ate whole grains, but we're eating white bread. American Indians ate corn; we eat corn syrup."

The ingredients in purified modern food cause people to "eat unconsciously and unnecessarily," and will also prompt an animal to "eat like a drug abuser [uses drugs]," says Wang.

So...Coca-Cola originally had cocaine as one of its ingredients...now it has high fructose corn syrup.  No wonder it's so popular.  :)

Indoctrinate U (On the Fence Films, 2007)

Indoctrinate U has been on my "watch list" for a while, but I hadn't been able to make myself take the time. It's not available from Netflix, but I found it on YouTube, in nine parts of about 10 minutes each.  Today it came up on my "get this done today" list, so I thought I'd watch one or two of the segments. But they don't end in good places, and anyway I got hooked, so I watched the whole thing.

This documentary on discrimination, intolerance, and anti-diversity in American higher education is obviously not a high-budget film, though I'm sure it's better in the original format.  I agree with Janet's comment that "it only pointed out the problems and didn't discuss any causes or better yet, idea for fixing the problems," and fear she may be right that it might be more divisive than helpful.  Nonetheless, it's an important film to watch for anyone attending, planning to attend, or sending money to a college or university.  I am not advocating staying away from college; but do be aware of the larger picture.

Although the film looks with some nostalgia on university life in the 1960's, there was plenty of intolerance for diversity of thought even then, though it was not, as now, enshrined in the bureaucracy, and the hard sciences (where I was) were mostly free of that, at least as far as the students were concerned.  Our professors had a hard enough time teaching us math and physics, and didn't feel that taking time for political discussion would help us understand differential equations any better.  I'm told by math professor friends that that has now changed.  One, who has taught both in the United States and in Africa, expressed frustration that her American university required her to teach her not only calculus, but also the importance of African mathematics.  I'm not sure what "African mathematics" might be that is important for a university math major to learn (I missed it in my classes), but I wouldn't be surprised if in the future the important mathematicians are African—because her African students are eager to learn the content, not the politics, of math.

The investigator for Indoctrinate U has been criticized for his confrontational approach, but while I do think one cannot expect to see a university president without an appointment, as journalists go, he was about as mild and polite as you can get.

Yes, the film is one-sided, and not only because they couldn't get anyone from the university side to talk seriously with them.  It presents, however, a side that is not usually heard—indeed, is often censored, mocked, threatened, and attacked—and can be forgiven for being a little strident.

Here is the first segment; from there YouTube will provide links to the remaining eight.  Be patient with the first couple, as at least I found the emphasis on affirmative action less interesting than the general topic of free speech on campus, which is more clearly presented in later parts.  (There is a small number of profanities—quoting from a threat to a student and from the title of a play—that are bleeped out if you get the "clean" version, but the download versions are unaltered.)

I wish they had made more of a distinction between public and private colleges.  To me, there's a huge difference between what a private school chooses to allow or forbid, and what a taxpayer-funded school does.  But in either case, if the school is presenting itself as a bastion of diversity, tolerance, and academic freedom, evidence to the contrary needs to be heard.  Caveat emptor.

Is there a solution?  Confronting the universities with their own stated diversity policies is a start:  Janet had some success at her school that way.  In the long run, I think the biggest difference will be made by India and the Internet.  American universities have long enjoyed near-monopolistic dominance in their field.  However, as it did for their manufacturing and information technology counterparts, that privilege is coming to an end.  When people have choices, change happens.

Janet alerted me to Jamie Oliver; DSTB followed up with what is apparently a new show on ABC.  It starts next Friday, but the pilot was shown last night; fortunately it's available both at the show site and Hulu, so I was able to watch it.  Jamie's attempt to get the people of Huntington, West Virginia to take a healthier approach to eating has the faults of American commercial television (just as does Who Do You Think You Are?), but it's not bad and (so far) is not as over the top as what I've seen of his British shows.  If his personality is a little too dramatic for my taste, there's no doubting the sincerity of his preaching and his mission.  His gospel is good, fresh food, and in this episode he takes on school lunches.

[Excuse me, school meals.  The only meal these children eat at home is dinner.  In Oliver's unfeigned horror at the meals served at our public schools, he misses what strikes me as the more important point:  Why are all these children eating school food?  Why aren't they bringing lunches from home, and why, for Pete's sake, don't they eat breakfast before going to school?  If the schools are going to offer food, certainly it should be healthy food, but where are the parents?  There's absolutely no need to subject one's children to American public school food, good or bad.  The school lunch (and now breakfast) program does serve a useful purpose, making sure children whose parents can't provide meals for them aren't trying to learn on empty stomachs.  That's a good thing.  But somehow the whole system got skewed; I know that the goal of the school lunch program at our kids' school was to have everyone participate.  (We didn't.)  I saw not one lunchbox in the show.  I hope that while he teaches the adults how easy it is to put together healthy meals, he also teaches the kids how easy it is to make their own healthy lunches.  But that's another issue; I know I'm taking on a Great American Icon by dissing the school lunch program.]

My favorite character in the show was one of the school lunch ladies, appropriately named Alice.  She wasn't the one in charge, but as Oliver said, "It's obvious that the real boss is Alice," and "Alice is a force to be reckoned with."  There are some delightfully obvious similarities—but the real Boss, Alice Davis Porter Wightman, would have agreed with Jamie about the food.

One place I disagree with him is his incomprehensible aversion to pizza for breakfast.  Granted, the pizza the children were being served didn't look good for any meal, but I'll stake my recent breakfast pizza against anyone's milk-and-cereal or bacon-and-eggs:  Homemade crust; homemade "tomato sauce" which was not only tomato but a whole bunch of other veggies cooked so it still looked and tasted like tomato sauce (only better); green, red, and hot peppers; mushrooms; onions; garlic; and spinach.  Yes, it also had cheese and, yes pepperoni—but so what?  The balance was great...and so was the pizza.  Far more veggies than most American breakfasts—or British either, I'll bet.

As long as I can watch it on my computer, with a pause button and while doing other things, I think I'll enjoy checking out Jamie Oliver's progress in upcoming episodes.

Cleaning out old things, found this Hagar the Horrible comic, probably from last October.  (The link is to the current comic; if you can't see the image below—some feedreaders strip images—you'll have to click through to the original post.)

Take it any way you want.  I see it mostly as a statement of how weak and selfish we have become to care more about prosperity than freedom.  But it also bears a hint of the truth that without economic freedom, the higher liberties are endangered.

Today was a wonderful, sunny-but-not-too-hot day, perfect for the Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival.  This is a huge annual event, with artists from all over the country, and Canada, too.  Northern states are particularly well represented, but they come for more than the weather, as the presence of David Levy from Davis, California attests.

David Levy.  Therein lies a tale.

Many years ago, some good friends from upstate New York gave us a gorgeous cutting board, made of strips of wood in a multi-colored zig-zag pattern.  Yes, we do use it as a cutting board, although it was a good two years I think before I could bring myself to set a knife to such beauty.  As we were strolling among the booths I suddenly exclaimed to Porter, "That's our cutting board!"  The pattern was unmistakable, although I'll admit I actually only thought it was like our cutting board.  When we returned home, however, I flipped ours over and read clearly, "David Levy, Davis, CA."  California, New York, Florida—this guy gets around.

I wore my Vibram Five Fingers shoes (which will eventually get their own post) and a Carnegie Mellon t-shirt, both of which drew interested comments.  Another fun thing was seeing the storefront which when the renovations are complete will house our very own Penzey's!

Our census form arrived.  In a word:  B-O-R-I-N-G.

It's a good thing for future genealogists that we have so many other forms of record-keeping, because they won't get much from the 2010 census.  Name, sex, date of birth, race in excruciating detail if you're Hispanic, Asian, or Pacific Islander (Dominican? Hmong? Fijian?), relationship to head-of-household (now inoffensively called "Person 1" — also in excruciating detail, distinguishing, for example, between biological and adopted children, which genealogists will love, if no one else).  That's only if you're one of the first six people in the household.  For Persons 7 through 12 they don't care about your race or exact relationship.  And if you're the 11th child in the family?  Apparently you're out of luck, but I suspect that may be covered by the "we may call for additional information" caveat that goes with the questions for Persons 7 - 12, since there's also a place to indicate the total number of people in the household.

I wrote before about the interesting information in previous censuses, but I'll repeat it for this occasion.

• 1820 - Not much besides a breakdown by age range, color, slave/free/citizenship status, and whether in agriculture, commerce, or manufacturing.
• 1830 - Was anyone in the household blind?
• 1850 - A big year for genealogists—the first time everyone was listed by name, rather than merely by head-of-household.  Place of birth was also added.  Other questions concerned value of real estate owned, school attendance, literacy, and whether or not the person was "deaf, dumb, blind, insane, idiotic, pauper, or convict?"
• 1870 - Were the person's parents of foreign birth?
• 1880 - Another good one for genealogists, as they started asking where the person's parents were born, and also marital status.  The sick/disabled status was expanded and broken down instead of being lumped together.
• 1890 - Lots of great data for genealogists here; unfortunately all but a very small number of these records were destroyed in a fire.  The racial breakdown for this census was "White, Black, Mulatto, Quadroon, Octoroon, Chinese, Japanese, or Indian."
• 1900 - How many years married, how many children born to mothers, how many of those still living—through this census I found my grandfather's sister.  Lots of questions about employment and living situations.  Also year of immigration, and naturalization status.
• 1910 - Mother tongue of person and his parents; number of years of present marriage, and whether the marriage is first or subsequent.  Is the person an employee, employer, or self-employed?
• 1930 - The race question gets more specific:  Enumerators were to enter "W" for white, "Neg" for black, "Mex" for Mexican, "In" for American Indian, "Ch" for Chinese, "Jp" for Japanese, "Fil" for Filipino, "Hin" for Hindu, and "Kor" for Korean. All other races were to be written out in full.
• 1940 - April 1, 2012 is the date genealogists are waiting for:  the 1940 census data will finally be released.  (There's a 72-year wait for reasons of privacy.)  It should be fascinating, as it includes many detailed questions about the family's housing situation, including lighting, sanitary facilities, heating, number of rooms, and much more.  Unfortunately, these detailed questions were only asked of five percent of the population.
• 1950 - This is getting closer to home, but we won't see it till 2022.  I wonder what they had to say about our house, if we were lucky enough to win the 5% sample lottery.
• 1960 - I'll be in this one!  I hope I live to see it.  Alas, for most of us this will be a really dull census, as most households were only asked for age, sex, race, and marital status data.  B-O-R-I-N-G!

Sometimes the questions say as much about the nature of the country as do the answers.